The Republican Party Needs Palin

Lara M. Brown is an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University.

Updated August 1, 2011, 1:30 PM

Despite Donald Trump’s incendiary antics and Newt Gingrich’s dramatic missteps, the Republican presidential nomination race has generated scant public interest. Like a shot in the arm, Sarah Palin would enliven the presidential race and engage the Republican base as no one else could.

Sarah Palin would enliven the race and engage the Republican base as no one else could.

Palin helps her party more than she hurts the other leading Republican candidates. Mitt Romney is not favored by social conservatives. Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota, is not well-known. Jon Huntsman worked for President Obama, whom he would be running against.

Palin has a specific political constituency – Tea Party sympathizers, Midwestern populists, social conservatives, military hawks and pro-life women – which Republicans desperately need to energize, if they hope to defeat an incumbent president in 2012.

With Mike Huckabee’s decision not to run, the only candidate now appealing to her base is the former Godfather Pizza chief executive, Herman Cain, who is little known, according to a recent Gallup opinion poll. Although she and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota would likely compete for activist support and media attention, Bachmann has yet to declare her candidacy. James Garfield is the only president who was elected directly from the U.S. House of Representatives, so Bachmann would have her work cut out for her.

Whether or not Palin secures the nomination, her fierce speaking style could help sharpen the Republican message and its attack on the Democrats. Her fundraising prowess would certainly help her party build its contributor lists. Unbowed by media critics, ideological opponents and some fellow Republicans, Palin continues to raise millions of dollars and generate substantial media coverage. Republicans need her, even if they fear her.